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David Dobbs writes on science, medicine, nature, and culture.

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ddsunnysb.jpg Author and journalist David Dobbs writes on science, medicine, and culture for the New York Times Magazine, Slate, Scientific American Mind, and other publications; "Buried Answers," one of his features for the Times Magazine, will appear in Houghton Mifflin's esteemed 2006 Best American Science and Nature Writing. The author of three books (see below), he is currently working on a book about the experience and neurobiology of fear. You can find more of his work at his website.

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BOOKS by David Dobbs



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Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral.
Oliver Sacks calls it "brilliantly written, almost unbearably poignant... The coral reef story becomes a microcosm of the conflicts -- between idealism and empiricism, God and evolution -- which were to split science and culture in the nineteenth century, and which still split them today.”

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The Great Gulf
An epistemological argument disguised as fish fight.

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The Northern Forest (with Richard Ober)
An environmental debate misses the most essential relationships in the ecosystem at hand.

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May 25, 2006

My article on Mirror Neurons

Category: Brains and minds

My Scientific American Mind article on mirror neurons is out, and includes some amusing and apt photographs and art. Mirror neurons, as the story explains, are motor neurons that fire not only when we perform an action (like reaching for an apple) but when we see someone else perform an action -- or even, as it turns out, when we read, think, or hear about someone performing that action. This mechanism, discovered about a decade ago, seems to underlie much motor, social, and even cultural learning. You can read the story here or buy the digital version online via Scientific...

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